It was a throw-away line from the 2009 US Open champion, Juan Martin del Potro, after he beat the No89 in the world, the fast-rising and impressive teenager Frances Tiafoe, in Acapulco last night.
“Either I’m getting older or these young guys are really good!”
It could have been a comment from one of the top-10 players that del Potro himself was beginning to beat on a regular basis as a teenager almost a decade ago. At age 20, he became the first man to beat both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in a Major at that US Open, and ended the year inside the top five.
But things did not pan out quite as Del Potro and many of his older colleagues may have anticipated. Repeated injury and surgery over the years blighted his career: He has subsequently made just one Major semi-final and two Masters finals—all in a resurgent 2013.
Meanwhile, Federer and Nadal have maintained their grip at or near the top of the tennis rankings, sharing the big honours with Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. Federer is now 35, Nadal 30, and Djokovic and Murray turn 30 this May.
Since del Potro, only two newcomers have got their names on a Grand Slam honours board: Marin Cilic and Stan Wawrinka—and the latter Swiss turns 32 this month.
It is the same story at the top tier of ATP tournaments. Over the last three years, 27 Masters, Cilic managed his first title only months ago, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga just over two years ago—and the Frenchman also turns 32 in a few weeks’ time. No-one else has had a look-in.
If ever this story was writ large over a tournament, it is at this week’s prestigious Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, where more than half of the main draw comprised over-30s. By the time the first round was played out, seven of the remaining 16 were over 30—but then four of those first matches were between golden oldies so four were destined to fall.
No6 seed Gael Monfils reached a career-high at the end of last year to qualify for his first World Tour Finals, and the 30-year-old reached the quarters here with a three-set win over Briton Dan Evans.
Fernando Verdasco, age 33, last summer reached his first two finals and picked up his first title in two years. His first came 13 years ago and he is now into the Dubai quarters for the first time after a gruelling two and a half hour 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 win over No6 seed Roberto Baustista Agut.
Verdasco’s first smiling reply to the age-old question was: “I feel old and tired after these kinds of matches.”
But he went on:
“I think the medicine, physiotherapy treatments for recovery, I think everything together makes players have longer careers… Of course, if you don’t have the motivation, or give everything every day, is impossible to be there… So hopefully we can, for few more years more, be there fighting and giving a little bit of bad days to the young guys [smiling].
Philipp Kohlschreiber, also 33, took on a man 12 years his junior in Dubai in an attempt to win match No399, and did so in 76 minutes, unbroken himself and breaking his opponent once in each of the 6-4, 6-4 sets. He served it out to love for good measure.
Of that, and the fact that he has been ranked between 16 and 40 for over 10 years, the German added, also with a smile:
“Well, I think I have hopefully a few more years to play on the tour, so I’m pretty confident that I gonna make 400-plus.”
In the first round, incidentally, Kohlschreiber beat fellow 33-year-old Gilles Muller, who is at a career-high 27 after winning his first title in Sydney. Muller had, until then, lost in five finals, the first of them more than 12 years ago.
Of course, the oldest man in the draw is perhaps the role model for all over-30s: Federer will be 36 in August and has just won his 18th Grand Slam title after a six-month lay-off—almost five years after his last.
The seven-time Dubai champion is going for his 90th career title here, and his form this season after having knee surgery a year ago has been the talk of the tennis tour. For years, though, fellow players, fans and the media have pointed to his fluid movement, balance, precision technique, and the way he is able to shorten points through shot variety and touch. It has, the argument goes, been relatively easy for him to avoid burnout.
All those qualities have, of course, played their part, and aside from recurrent back problems, Federer’s surgery last year has been the only real sign of wear and tear.
But asked about what he believes is behind the constancy and resilience of players on the tour today, he talked in Dubai of other factors.
“I think it shows we keep ourselves in good shape. I’m not the only guy… a bunch of guys doing it. Playing longer, not retiring at 25 and 26. It shows that maybe the tennis world is a good place. You can stay happy and have a life beside the tennis life which I think is important.”
He referred, perhaps, to the rising profile of tennis and its ever-increasing reach. That has led to more prize money for players in qualifying and early rounds of the bigger tournaments, and into the growing professionalisation of the sport in training methods, diet, and off-court management. It allows more players, as Federer has done, to manage their schedules, avoid overplaying, and to get enough rest during the season.
Federer also pointed to a stability in environment and equipment.
“The conditions didn’t change so much in the last 10 years, so that may be why it is easier to perfect that way of playing. There were more changes 15 or 20 years ago. The big change for me came in 2002 when I changed strings to half and half [gut and synthetic]. Then court speeds slowed down. Maybe for the last 10-13 years, we’ve had the same in technology, balls, surfaces.”
Of late, though, there have been signs that a bit of variety may be the spice of life—well certainly for the kind of players who want to mix in some old-school serve-and-volley tactics. The Australian Open used faster courts and Federer’s aggressive, forward-moving tennis thrived. And yes, tactically, that is a direction in which the 35-year-old will surely move to keep points, games, and matches manageably short, no matter how fit he remains.
And there is reason to be optimistic about the next generation of players, many of whom are beginning to make their way towards the top 20 as they head towards and beyond their 20s. Tiafoe was throwing in some net attacks against del Potro, as does teenage Sascha Zverev. The NextGen players are learning the ways of the tour through their dedicated segment of the ATP, but also from practising with—and listening to—their tennis ‘elders’.
And ahead of them, a set of strong and steadily developing players—the likes of Lucas Pouille, Dominic Thiem, and Jack Sock—promise much: all of them strong, with solid teams and with plenty of variety in their game.
For now, though, and in Dubai in particular, there is no getting rid of the thriving 30s.